Reform Includes Dollars And Sense

May 14, 1997

As the political horse-trading proceeds in Springfield over how best to overhaul the state's inequitable system of funding education, the folks doing the trading shouldn't discount the importance of reforming Illinois' heavy-handed governance of schools while they're at it.

This legislative session offers an ideal opportunity to marry funding reform and accountability reform--measures to increase the schools' responsibility for turning out properly educated kids.

But schools can't fairly be asked to do that until they are given the opportunity to operate unhampered by state laws that restrict their ability to make the best choices for their students.

Many of those restrictions, part of the voluminous and burdensome Illinois School Code, exist to protect the economic interests of teachers rather than the educational interests of schoolchildren.

It's time to clean house. In tandem with funding reform, the General Assembly should:

- Eliminate laws mandating teacher tenure. Even if the law were changed to require more than a couple of years' teaching before tenure kicks in, even if the law made it more feasible for schools to get rid of incompetent teachers--even then, tenure still wouldn't belong on the statute books.

Districts might offer tenure as a reward for outstanding achievement, and that's fine. But as law, teacher tenure prevents them from hiring the best, firing the worst and maintaining high standards.

- Eliminate laws that mandate such details as class size, lunchroom schedules, length of school days and so on. Those decisions should be left to the individual districts, based on their individual needs.

- Provide an alternative certification process for mature professionals in other fields who wish to become teachers but have not taken the traditional "school of education" route.

- Instead of mandating how districts spend specific portions of their state aid, give them the money in the form of block grants, allowing them to spend it as they see fit.

This is just a sampling of what needs to be done to give schools control over their educational destinies. Once they've got that, they can be held rigorously accountable for how well their students are faring.

But the first step down that road is to make sure each school gets at least the minimum funding to adequately educate its kids.